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‘THE DC100’
A model for successful consultation with
disabled people & carers
in a rural area
How to design and implement an effective
method of consultation with disabled people
How to design and implement an effective
method of consultation with disabled people
How to design and implement an effective
method of consultation with disabled people
Contents
The problem 3
The solution 4
The tool 5
The 6 step plan 6 - 8
A case study 9
The Unitary Authority survey sample 10 - 11
Press release 12
What can be achieved 13
The bonus feature 14
The learning points 15-16
The last word 17
The problem2
We used to provide a consultation service through holding physical meetings
of small groups of people for service providers to meet and consult with
direct. This allowed our organisation to generate income and gave an
opportunity for our members to influence and shape future services.
However, the Consultation Panels presented us with the following problems:
• Cornwall has poor public transport, hardly any of it accessible
and therefore it proved costly and labour intensive to source
private accessible transport
• Difficult for people to attend meetings as the county of Cornwall
is over 80 miles long and many people live in highly ruralised
areas
• Very few truly accessible meeting places available
• Consultations were difficult to operate on a large scale and often
the small numbers of people who could attend were usually the
same people for almost every consultation panel
• Hard to find a replacement if consultee’s had to cancel at short
notice due to illness, unforeseen problems etc
• Lots of logistical work to organise these meetings and often
expensive to hold them
• Although good for obtaining personal views and experiences, the
panels were too small to be viewed as representative of the
views of disabled people generally
So, the question was – can we find an alternative way to obtain the views and experiences of more disabled people?
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The solution
A former Chairman of Disability Cornwall mentioned how good it would be if
could have a type of ‘Citizens Jury’ which would comprise a large enough
number of disabled people to be a representative group for us to consult with
as and when the need arose. Combining that and the problems encountered
with the consultation service, plus a little bit of creative thinking the DC100
was born!
To be eligible to join the DC100 we would need some basic eligibility
criteria. We set that as follows:
• Be a disabled person or a carer
• Have access to email and check it frequently
• Happy to receive and complete one survey per month for a period of
one year
The three most fruitful ways of recruiting DC100 members proved to
be:
1) ‘Rent a crowd!’ Recruiting existing members, friends and people we
knew to get us up and running
2) Displaying leaflets about the DC100 and the benefits it could bring for
the voice of the disabled people’s movement at relevant events
3) Incorporating details for ‘sign up’ to the DC100 into our existing
membership form / packs4
Map showing where the DC100 members live in Cornwall
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6
2
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17
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99
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The tool (www.surveymonkey.com)It is free to use the basic ‘Survey Monkey’ software programme.
It cost £136.31 for a one year subscription which gave us
unlimited use with all the frills.
The Monkey:-
• provides us with the opportunity to gain the greater geographical
spread we were looking for without holding physical meetings
• enables us to hold a database of participants, design surveys and
email them to everyone with just one click
• is easy to use. You can design questions requiring only a simple tick
box or multiple choice answer, although you can insert spaces for the
‘100’ member to add in more information if they wish, providing you
with more qualitative and anecdotal data
• collects all the information so it’s easy for us to see what people are
saying, such as “80% of people said access was poor.”
• is the best type of survey tool for people who have visual impairments
and use reader activated software
• set questions as compulsory to answer prior to moving on to the next
question to ensure you get a thorough response and people don’t skip
or miss any
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The six step planUsing a simple 6-step process we are using the versatile DC100 for all of the
following:
A) To explore what the concerns of disabled people are at a local level
across Cornwall so we may raise awareness of social policy type issues
both through the media and our magazine, Discover.
B) A valuable consultation service which we offer to service providers and
charge for accordingly
C) A tool through which we source the views of our members to shape
own organisations’ future development
1) Identify the purpose for which you need a survey
A) What is the subject you wish to consult with your ‘100’ on and why?
Has a matter been brought to your attention such as inequality, lack
of access, discrimination etc?
B) Talk to the service provider regarding what they want to consult the
‘100’ about. Give them guidance regarding keeping questions user
friendly and discuss what outcome they want to achieve
C) Is there something happening within your own organisation with which
the views and experiences of your constituents / members could help
shape and develop?
2) Compose the survey and send it to your ‘100’
Remember to keep the survey easy read and keep the layout user
friendly. Use the covering email to introduce the subject you are
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surveying, with further detail included at the top of the survey, but don’t go
overboard, less is more! Stick to just one subject and remember to set a
date for when you want the surveys to be returned by. You will need
dedicated staff for designing surveys in-house, but for a service provider
buying your service why not request they set the questions for you?
3) Analyse the results
Survey Monkey will collect the results together and tell you how many people
filled in the survey, what they wanted and what they said. It also presents the
information in a percentage format for you.
4) Decide what you want to do with the information
A) If it’s a social policy type issue, then consider how you can best raise
awareness of what your ‘100’ are saying, a press release maybe? Find
a ‘hook to hang it on’ and be aware the media often look for punchy
headlines, so to avoid ‘Helping hand for the disabled’ or some equal
horror, try and suggest a good headline in your press release which
sums up your story in five words or less. There are some key things to
know when writing a press release; layout is important, make sure you
can clearly identify it as a press release, date it including an embargo
date if relevant, then start with the most important bit of information,
ensuring the first paragraph addresses the who, what, when, where,
how and why’s and then descend the information in order of
importance. Always put ‘notes to the editors’ at the end comprising
relevant background information and a telephone number they can
contact you on for further details. Look at the newspapers’ house style
and try and tailor your press release to it increasing your chances of
getting published. Maybe you could consider a copywriting / press
release workshop for your team?
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B) If you have been commissioned to do the survey by a service provider
then all you simply have to do is to print off the survey results and send
to them!
C) If you are using the survey for the benefit of your own organisation,
you may want to call a meeting to consider the survey’s findings or
present it to your Trustee Board or project steering group.
5) Follow it up
Always call to check your press release has been received and to make
contact in general. If the newspapers don’t use it, what alternative options do
you have, local TV, websites, another relevant publication, or can you re-
phrase the press release to make it more attractive to the newshounds!
Talk to the service provider. Are they happy with the results obtained and
would they perhaps like a more specific survey now? Also ask how they will
be using the information obtained from your ‘100.’
N.B Keep on their case and ensure they have put the survey results to good use!
6) Feedback
It is always best practice to give feedback to everyone involved in the survey,
but especially the ‘100’ themselves, so they feel included and will know their
time was well spent and that their concerns and opinions are important and
valued.
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A case study to show how the DC100 process worked from start
to finish for us
On 1 April 2009 Cornwall County Council and its six district councils became
one unitary authority, the largest in the country and to be known as Cornwall
Council.
Previously, Disability Cornwall had challenged the County Council to improve
access to its buildings for disabled people and because of this, as part of the
process of change, Disability Cornwall was one of the organisations who
submitted a tender to access audit all of the proposed ‘One Stop Shop’ sites
around the county. One of these shops was to be situated in each of the 22
towns and large villages in Cornwall.
Our tender was unsuccessful and the work went to an organisation out of
county, but part of their task was to engage with local disabled people to
discover what the problems were. We were randomly hearing back from our
members about issues concerning the shops so, when the DC100 was
established we designed a survey to find out whether the experiences of
disabled people accessing Cornwall Council services had now improved.
Follows:
A sample of our survey.
A sample of our press release which we then sent to Cornwall’s local weekly media including The Cornishman, West Briton and Cornish Guardian newspapers (tailoring it slightly to make it relevant to each publications’ geographical area).
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Unitary Authority Survey
1. Cornwall Council One Stop Shops
100%
On 1st April 2009 Cornwall County Council and the former six district council's became one unitary authority known as Cornwall Council. Disability Cornwall would like to find out whether the experiences of disabled people accessing Cornwall Council services have now improved. As a disabled peoples' organisation, we are here to represent your views and we intend to use the findings of this survey in a press release to the local media. All responses will be anonymous unless you wish to be identified; it would be very helpful to have a quote if you would like to give us one. Please tick all that apply to you and type any comments in the boxes provided. We are very grateful for your assistance and would appreciate it if you would complete this survey by Tuesday 27th October.
1. Are You:
A person with a disabilityA carerA parent / carer
2. Cornwall Council now has 22 One Stop Shops (one in each of the major towns in Cornwall). Have you visited any?YesNo
3. Which One Stop Shop did you visit?
5. How easy is it to get to the One Stop Shop using public transport?EasyNot easyN/A
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If you have said not easy please tell us why
7. When you arrived at the One Stop Shop how would you rate the following?
Excellent Satisfactory Poor N/AProvision of accessible parking?Level of the ground outside?Ease of finding the entrance?Accessibility of entrance ramp/doors?
Provision of handrails and or large door handles?
8. Once inside the One Stop Shop how would you rate the following?
Excellent Satisfactory Poor N/AEase of moving around in the building?The welcome you received from staff?Accessibility of facilities? (E.g. low level reception counter / clear interior signs etc.)Consideration of communication needs? (E.g. hearing loop / information in alternative formats)Suitability of accessible toilets?
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Embargo: immediate 30 October 2009
PRESS RELEASE
One Stop Shops, What One Stop Shops?
Local disabled peoples organisation, Disability Cornwall, have carried out a
survey with their ‘DC100
consultation panel’, to
determine whether
Cornwall Councils new
service structure, which
has made more services
available in each locality,
had actually benefited
disabled people.
The charity was staggered
to learn that 64% of those
consulted had not even
heard of the new ‘One Stop
Shops’, in place since April
this year.
Chair of Disability Cornwall, Steve Paget, said: “This
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What can be achieved?Perhaps the most important part of this consultation process is what impact
the outcome of the survey has had. The DC100 could easily become
disillusioned if they didn’t feel their views were being put to good use. Think
BBC’s Crimewatch update – have any of those phone calls actually led to
anything, has justice been done to any of the criminals featured?
So, thinking of our One Stop Shop survey, what did we do with the
information gathered? Firstly, the press release did get featured in the local
press as we hoped, but the DC100 really came up trumps when the BBC
Politics Show picked up the story. It was not exactly surprising that Cornwall
Council themselves kept quiet in the immediate aftermath of the TV
programme being aired, but a few weeks later we learnt that access
improvements to the particular One Stop Shop featured on the Politics Show
had now been prioritised. A close eye is being kept on an apparent £70,000
of planned improvements!
Secondly, our colleagues who manage the Voluntary Sector Forum have
arranged for us to attend a meeting with Cornwall Council’s Chief Executives
Department to talk about the survey, its subsequent publicity and what we
expect the council to do about the issues raised.
So, if you can and it’s appropriate to your particular survey, aim for some TV
exposure! This can seriously raise the stakes and increases pressure on the
service provider concerned to act on the situation you are drawing the
public’s attention to.
It also gave our organisation some welcome recognition as the collective
voice for disabled people in Cornwall.
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The Bonus Feature…BBC 1 – The Politics Show
The learning points
• Be clear about your expectations of the ‘100’ in terms of how often you
will send surveys and over what period of time. As an example, clarify
how many surveys you will send and how often
• Surveys can be difficult to compose as the questions need to be
phrased correctly to ensure you obtain the information you require.
Consider training for your staff
• We try and keep to a limit of no more than 15 separate questions
concerning one subject matter only, per survey
• Surveys will take more time to produce to a good standard than you
may think, so allow time for this
• Test out the survey beforehand with colleagues or friends to ensure it
works and to iron out any difficulties
• Get training for relevant people. Copywriting / press release workshops
may be provided by a local PR Company. Also, could the local
university’s research department provide training for composing
questions?
• There may be times when you may need to ask your ‘100’ members if
they are interested in providing further information regarding a specific
subject where appropriate. Therefore, clarify what contact details you
require such as a telephone number
• Holding detailed information on your ‘100’ could help with specific
targeted surveys, such as how many are carers or have a sensory
impairment etc. We are currently looking into whether this is feasible
taking into consideration the Data Protection Act
• People can change their email address and may not think to let you
know, but some email servers will not allow multiple emails to be sent if
just one email is wrong and then nobody will receive the survey at all
• Not everybody goes online daily and so may not complete your survey
for a while. If its time sensitive then you may have to follow up with a
phone call
• People can be put off responding if they do not understand the subject
the survey is about, so ensure you give a clear overview of it, which
the monkey allows you to do in addition to a covering email
• Make the surveys regular so as to keep the interest of the ‘100’ or at
least a short email to keep in touch
• Thank your consultees and give them feedback so they know how their
information was used and how valued their contribution has been
• Offering small rewards such as a £20 Marks & Spencer voucher can
result in quicker responses
• Above all else, keep it simple
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The Last Word
So what has our experience shown us?
It shows us that an effective model for consultation such as the DC100
can have a direct and positive impact, as demonstrated by our experience
with the One Stop Shop in St Ives. But also that the effects are multiple
and various, and can have far reaching and lasting affects on the design
and delivery of the organisation as a whole.
Our DC100 has the potential to become a driver for positive change,
feeding in the views of disabled people countywide. It enables us to be
more representative as the county’s pan-disability ULO and it hasn’t
escaped our notice that it could become a significant income generator
and yet another quality service of real value a ULO can provide. Our
DC100 will also serve as an invaluable touchstone, providing us with the
intelligence we need to drive a rights-based agenda forward towards
lasting and positive improvements to ensure that choice, independence
and control is fully realised for people in Cornwall.
Published by:
Disability CornwallUnits 1G & H Guildford Rd Industrial Estate
HayleCornwall
TR27 4QZT/Minicom: 01736 759500
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